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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24551977">now comes the day to bid you farewell</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/drelfina/pseuds/drelfina'>drelfina</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>A Very Chinese ABO [6]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Joy of Life, Joy of Life (TV), 庆余年 | Joy of Life (TV), 庆余年 | Qing Yu Nian (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, M/M, a very chinese ABO, saying farewell, the sacrifices you make, to say farewell to your mate, what it means to fight for the throne, why would he do that?</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 01:33:35</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,600</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24551977</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/drelfina/pseuds/drelfina</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Li Chengze had seconded his guard to Fan Xian when he agreed to head the delegation to Beiqi.</p><p>In two days, Xie Bi'an will leave.</p><hr/><p>technically takes place after chapter 1 of <i>more things in heaven and earth</i></p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Li Chengze/Xie Bi'an</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>A Very Chinese ABO [6]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1761676</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>18</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>now comes the day to bid you farewell</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/evocates/gifts">evocates</a>.</li>



    </ul></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He didn't dress in the omega style very often. </p><p>It wasn't that beta dress was very uncomfortable or that he didn't like it, no. </p><p>In some ways, the light trailing gauzy silks that an omega could wear were less eye-catching than that of the heavily embroidered or bright brocade he wore as a beta prince, if he compared them side-by-side. </p><p>But it was really a matter of rarity; when he visited the Drunken Immortal, he stood out far more amongst them, delicate flowers sheltered within fine and translucent screens - they all of them to a one were soft and fine and delicate, and he stood out as gaudy, too-bright and obvious.</p><p>On the streets he walked down, even if he rarely saw other people, he was just another beta prince, clothes that draped with weight of authority and office down his shoulders. </p><p>How he dressed was important, had <i>meaning</i>. He didn't stand out in Court any further than his brother-the-Crown-Prince, just another contender for the throne in the teals, peacock, purple and reds his station was allowed, while their Aunt was always the center of attention, draped in the soft clouds of white and silver like mid-winter snow. </p><p>He stole the eye when he went into the brothel, because he was a <i>prince</i>, he had his hair up like a beta because he was a <i>beta</i>. </p><p>This time, he knelt down in front of a mirror he rarely used, because the habits of years and deft-handed attendants meant he never needed to know what his hair looked like. He knelt in front of the mirror and pulled off the hairpiece, tugged off the black fine ribbons that held his hair up. </p><p>It took a little effort before his hair, accustomed to this shape and form, would fall, thick with waves that had been curled in with habit. </p><p>But it fell anyway, to his waist, and he took the comb he had laid out earlier before he'd shed the beta clothing, and combed his hair through, slow, and gentle, getting it to lie mostly flat down his back, over the soft pale green silk on his shoulders.</p><p>Xie Bi'an waited outside in his bedroom, not having moved when he'd told him to stay, when he'd dismissed the servants, when they'd returned from meeting Fan Xian outside in the streets. </p><p>Bi'an's things had already been ready, the evening his Father the Emperor had <i>suggested</i> Fan Xian take that escort mission to Beiqi. So there was nothing for Bi'an to prepare for, in the days Fan Xian was dealing with his own affairs, just two days between then and when Bi'an was to leave. </p><p>His hair had never been fully straight, like his aunt's. But it still didn't take much effort to have it fall like a thick heavy curtain down his back, the ends of his hair curling lightly at his waist. He didn't have any ornaments to decorate his hair with, nor did he have any flowers, fresh or silk, because those were things he couldn't afford to have. </p><p>So just his hair, straight as he could make it, down on his back, falling over his shoulder as he stood up to pad in a whisper of silk gauze out back to his bedroom, where he'd made Bi'an wait. </p><p>And it was worth it, to see the look in Bi'an's eyes, taking in how he looked - the first time, the <i>only</i> time Bi'an had ever seen him like this, his sleeves long enough that they draped far past his knees, soft enough that the silk clung like summer's kiss to his form, floating around him like a breeze.</p><p>And how Bi'an's hands trembled, when Chengze came up to him, and curled down between Bi'an's knees, his robes fluttering into a soft puddle around him, between them, layers of blues and greens shimmering to pool with the sheen of silk, colours catching dark and light in the slant of the afternoon sun, like the waves of the great lake that he had once taken Bi'an to, four years ago. </p><p>"Bi'an," he said, and Bi'an didn't need him to say anything more to lift trembling hands to his face, cupping his cheeks with tender, careful fingers. He leaned up even as Bi'an drew him in, both of them moving in well-learned, long-practiced synchrony, to press close into a kiss.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>He'd cried several times, those two days, in his rooms neither of them really left. </p><p>He hadn't meant to. He didn't want Bi'an to worry. </p><p>(He hadn't cried since the time his older brother last held him, when he had been barely fifteen and terrified from his only solo jaunt in the capital. He hadn't thought he would cry now.)</p><p>Bi'an had held him the first time. Asked if it'd hurt. </p><p>Because Bi'an was always, <i>always</i> so… it wasn't that he was always so gentle. But it was almost always like he read his mind; Bi'an always, always gave him what he wanted, would constantly hold off and wait if he didn't know what he <i>did</i> want. </p><p>"It's fine. It's just intense. Don't stop. Don't <i>stop</i>." </p><p>And it had been intense. Having Bi'an like this - not that Bi'an was ever reluctant, but this was the first time that he'd dressed like this, let Bi'an carefully lay him out on the soft, very soft, cotton of his bed, spread his hair over the satin of his pillows, and slide warm hands over and under fine silk gauze.</p><p>They had had two days and nowhere else to be, and he had clung, clutched at Bi'an and held on, and <i>cried</i>. </p><p>Each time it wasn't from the intensity, but Bi'an had let him wave it off as that, dark eyes knowing exactly what he meant. </p><p>And that was probably what made emotion well up in his chest, that <i>understanding</i> - the same precious understanding, the same warm strength that had looked at him across a street and caught him before he might have fallen, the safety that had led him out of danger and back to his brother, the same strength that had fought off more than two dozen men for him.</p><p>And Bi'an was going away. </p><p>He was sending Bi'an away, and Bi'an <i>knew</i> why, and didn't say no, didn't ask to stay anyway, and he knew that if Bi'an had said so, had <i>asked</i>, he would have changed his mind, and changed his plans. </p><p>And so he curled in Bi'an's arms, tucking his face in Bi'an's neck and thought about how it was <i>necessary</i>, and how desperately he wanted to have this safety for the rest of his life.</p><p>And Bi'an held him, carefully stroking his hands down his hair, his back, and kissed his forehead, his hair, and said nothing when he wet Bi'an's shoulder and neck with the force of emotions he should have been able to hold back.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Afterwards, afterwards, he'd combed out the knots in his hair. Bi'an had been so careful, that there were fewer knots than if he'd actually slept with his hair loose by himself.</p><p>After watching him for a few minutes, Bi'an had come forward, and taken the comb from his hands, and with even gentler fingers, carded his hair smooth, only leaning in to press warm lips to the mark high on his throat, just below his jaw, before he gently laid his hair back down in the heavy fall. </p><p>He watched Bi'an's eyes in the mirror, and said, "I'll come see you off at the gates." </p><p>He changed into another set of clothes, the ones Bi'an had laid him out on carefully folded away to be kept under his pillow, Bi'an's eyes on him as he draped gossamer white over his shoulders, the folds of the lapels low enough that Bi'an could see every mark he'd left along his collarbone and up his throat, marks of possession that were a promise to come back. </p><p>This time he took his carriage; the carriage he had never used after Bi'an had come under his banner. </p><p>He didn't draw the curtains up; the sight of him like this, with his hair down and barely covering Bi'an's marks, were for Bi'an's eyes only. </p><p>The curtains were just thin enough he could see out, though no one could see in, and he could see Bi'an on his horse, steady and straight, and when Bi'an drew up alongside his carriage, all he said was, "Come back." </p><p>Come back at all costs. Even if he didn't succeed in what they planned, in what they wanted, Bi'an only had to come back. </p><p>There would be other chances if this fell through. </p><p>There will be none at all if Bi'an never returned. </p><p>"I would not fail you, Your Highness," Bi'an said, bowing. </p><p>He reached out to touch his fingertips to the curtain, barely brushing the fabric to trace the outline of Bi'an's sunlit face.</p><p>"You could never fail me," he said, and sat, straight and head held high as Bi'an's horse joined Fan Xian's entourage.</p><p>He stayed there, waiting, watching until the entire train of people disappeared beyond the curve of the road out of the city's bounds, and he sat there still longer for another shift of the sun, before he gave the order to return.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>It was only in the privacy of his room, that night, when he went to his bed, and took out the robe that Bi'an had laid him out in, and pressed it to his face.</p><p>When two weeks passed, and the fabric held no more trace of Bi'an's scent, only then did the silk wet with his tears.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>did i cry a lot writing this? </p><p>yes. yes i did. </p><p>:D</p></blockquote></div></div>
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